Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again.
Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again.
After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again.
The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.
... The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.
I'm taking this graph from wikimedia. It's super weird, no?
In some other developed countries, you can even see how lockdowns brought down traffic deaths. It especially saved children. The US just... loses it?
Car sizes are getting larger in america to meet the fule efficiency requirements imposed by the government.
Car manufacturers could not meet these requirements, but they figured out that if they increase the weight of the car they could meet the fule efficiency.
Here is a video that explains it better then my ape brain could.
Because our requirements for getting a license are basically nothing. You answer 20 is super basic questions half of which have fucking nothing to do with driving or have insanely retarded answers like "how many feet exactly should you turn off your high beams if there's another car approaching" YOU TURN THEM OFF FUCKING IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU SEE ANOTHER CAR!! Oh sorry I blinded you I was pretty sure that was about 500 ft my bad
And then the Practical test the vast majority of places do a quick little jaunt around the block on some insanely basic streets have you parallel park real quick and then you're good to go. The drivers in America are more deadly because they learn literally fucking nothing from the process of acquiring a license
I looked into similar data from the NHTSA regarding accidents during lock down on the hypothesis the insurance companies would have an interest in WFH. I was stunned to see accidents did not decrease. Anecdotally i was working in field service during this period, and observed what seemed like less traffic, and yet the data disagreed with my impressions during the time.
While I agree 99% of people are fucking morons I am curious about something. I've been driving for awhile now and I've noticed that since 2019 it has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY worse. I'm curious if the increase in awful drivers is in anyway related to the current economy. We have nearly everyone working multiple jobs to stay afloat. Could this be causing people to be more reckless from a mix of exhaustion and the fact they feel forced to take risks and drive in order to maintain their relationships since they don't have time to do it any other way? I am in no way justifying this behavior I'm merely just interested in if this is in anyway related. I really can't express just how bad drivers have gotten in such a short span of time.
We're practically a trustless country at this point. Lack of trust in others as well as government is highly correlated with aggressive shit driving.
In addition, as an often aggressive driver, boy is it irritating to be driving amongst the zombies that are all going 45 on the highway in the middle lane because they're all staring at their phones.
